Oh goat boffer, of course you'll be inclined to enjoy it more. And why shouldn't you? Smoking for pleasure is not a strictly objective exercise and it is not as unidimensional as the mere "taste" of a cigar. When you smoke a Cuban cigar, you are not just combusting leaf and measuring the byproducts. You're meditating on the tradition of the Cuban cigar and the history of tobacco in the New World. In locking in on the "meme" theory, you're chasing a narrow goal and have devised a fallacious test in an attempt to reveal and discredit this prejudicial mechanism on the assumption that it is by definition, evil.
If someone claims that they can tell the taste of a Cuban cigar, or that there is a Cuban-esque taste that pervades all cigars from Cuba, and isn't present in cigars from anywhere else (as some have stated here), then the test is not fallacious at all.
If they really believe what they are saying, they damn well better be able to pick out what cigars are Cuban and what cigars are not. Otherwise the concept of the "taste of a Cuban cigar" is nothing more than a marketing punch line.
I'm not assuming that this prejudice is "evil" at all -- but rather proceeding from the perspective that when one is plunking down money on something they should do so on the basis of what they actually enjoy the taste of.
If they derive pleasure from the "forbidden fruit" or the idea that they are smoking a luxury item, that's fine too... but call a spade a spade, and know that this is what it's about.
Let's face it, common form in the cigar maniac world (of which we are all a part if we're posting on this board) is that Cuban cigars are what you "graduate to" when your "tastes develop". Based on the blind taste tests that I've seen, no only is this not true, but most people can't tell if a cigar is Cuban or not anyway.
So... smoke what you like, and don't make pretensions about a cigar based on what island it happens to come from. Same thing with wine; drink what you like, but don't think that "French wine" is inherently better tasting than wine from, say, Napa. Because in both cases, blind taste tests do not bear out conventional wisdom on these matters.
Does that which has no sensory effect have meaning? Sure. I hand you two bars of soap. One is made by the industrial giant Procter and Gamble while the other is made by company that supports Fair Trade and is made by indigenous peoples in Tanzania. Both are soap. Both work. But I'll feel a lot better about myself buying and using the Fair Trade soap.
But which one gets you cleaner and makes you smell better? Honestly, that's all I'd care about, moral issues aside. The moral issues of "fair trade" etc. are a red herring, especially in this case, considering that cigars from Cuba are illegal under the "Trading with the Enemy" act, and it would be quite a stretch to consider contributions to Fidel's coffers as a humanitarian gesture.
